


A Long Retirement

by seenonlyfromadistance



Category: Philip Marlowe - Raymond Chandler
Genre: M/M, The Long Goodbye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 17:05:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2076063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seenonlyfromadistance/pseuds/seenonlyfromadistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes time, but eventually  Marlowe heads down to Mexico to find that one person he's always missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long Retirement

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [漫长的退隐](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10917912) by [travispatrol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/travispatrol/pseuds/travispatrol)



> more self-indulgent nonsense bullshit from me, all just because I wanted to write it and featuring scenes I just felt like including-- basically because I'm a sucker for a happy ending.

I was fifty when I decided I’d had enough.

It had been another case where I got run around and beat up and dragged out, and I was through. I was too old for it and too tired and too lonely.

I closed up the case with a black eye, a sore cheek, and a broken ego. I felt like trash dragged through a blender and owed two hundred bucks; I'd spent the last four days being tricked and toyed with all around town. On top of that, I’d just spent ten hours with the cops. Exhausted, I limped back home. There’s no better way to find yourself completely defeated.

The house on Yucca Avenue was quiet and empty and dark. I made some coffee and went to wash up while it was brewing. In the bathroom, I splashed water over my features and looked at my bruises. I hardly recognized the face staring back at me, with its wrinkles and sad eyes. I went back to the kitchen and sat in the breakfast nook and stared out into nothing for a while. Sitting across from empty space, I had a flash of mad desire to pack up a few things, lock up the house, and drive to Mexico.

Why not? I thought, without thinking any further. Why not go?

When I packed up, I did so in a strange, numb flurry, thoughtlessly tossing shirts and trousers and underthings into a weekend bag. I picked up a box that had lived under my bedside table for years and when I realized what I had in my hands the world slowed back down. I wandered into the kitchen and sat at the table in the breakfast nook with the box in front of me. I splashed a little whiskey into my coffee and lit a cigarette. Then I went through the letters, slowly, digging through to read post marks so I could read them in order. I took my time and I read carefully, still in a kind of haze.

He'd written me a lot since last I'd seen him. For a while I received a letter almost every week from him, delivered to the office with his sloping handwriting on the front and no return address. I recognized his writing: the sideways tilt of all his letters, the way his 9's had tails, the curls inside the loops of his P's. I had never opened any of them, but I had never quite been able to bring myself to junk them either. I knew I should, but I just couldn't. I had kept them in a cardboard box in the bottom of one of my filing cabinets instead. Once in a while I would be about to drop the box into the trash, but I never actually did it. Envelopes just accumulated.

The letters slowed over time, their arrival changing from weekly to monthly, and then after about two years I only got letters every six months or so. One around my birthday and one around Christmas time. Sometimes another would find its way to me, but no longer on a consistent schedule. When the letters started coming to the house I was renting again in Laurel Canyon, I took the box of letters home with me and kept the collection going. How he knew I was still living in that house I have no idea.

They weren't what you would call love letters, but they were affectionate and apologetic. The first few were miserable, thinly veiled pleas for understanding. If I had read these when they'd first arrived, they would have infuriated me-- I'd always understood what Terry had done and why he had done it, I just hadn't approved. He was the one who didn't understand

I didn't care so much now.

The letters transitioned slowly into stories designed to tempt me to Mexico and stayed that way for a while. They were enchanting, I give him that. He was always talented at spinning a good yarn. Always there were appeals to our friendship, to whatever it was we had had together, though over time the appeals became less desperate, less imploring, less expectant. Once the letters stopped being weekly, they settled into a casual, friendly tone of just checking in. Sometimes he included a return address inside the letter itself-- not that it was hard to track where he was writing from. Most of the letters were post marked from the same little Mexican town. Two years ago I had pulled out an atlas and found it. Guaymas, a coastal town about twelve hours south. As a spot on a map it looked like a nice, quiet little spot. I had imagined him in Mexico City, or Acapulco, but apparently he had chosen to retire somewhere quiet. Only rarely did he comment that I never responded to his letters. I can't imagine he had ever really expected me to.

Mostly the letters said almost nothing at all. It was all idle fluff after a while, and even the six-month updates became empty. Yet all of them said he missed me, all of them said he was thinking of me, even if I wasn't thinking of him, all of them had the same sort of wistful tone running like a gentle river beneath his words. Some were sad, some were funny, but all of them were _him_ ; all over. Even now, even when I hadn't heard him speak in almost eight years, I could hear his voice in each of his letters.

It took me a few hours to skim through all of them, and a few more to re-read in depth the ones worth reading more thoroughly. Finally, I filed them all back into the box and put the lid on. I finished my coffee, which had long since gone cold. The empty space across from me loomed. My fingers rapped at the top of the box.

All affectionate but vague, welcoming but not outwardly inviting, all postmarked from Guaymas, all signed T.L. Maioranos. He had invited me once a long time ago and I had declined, but apparently he had never fully given up on it. Impressive, since I had long ago given up on him. He just continued to write even though I never responded. It probably didn’t even have much to do with me anymore.

When the sun came up and I hit the road, the box of letters was sitting next to me on the seat of the car.

I drove to where his letters came from. I started very early in the morning, and it took me most of the day. By the time I passed the city limits of Guaymas it was late afternoon and I felt foolish. On the drive down I had almost turned around five times. I had a sick feeling that I had made a mistake in coming down here, but I had come so far I wasn't about to just go back home. So I got to work. After asking around town for an hour, I found someone who was willing to give me directions. A little villa on the north end of town, _señor_ , a nice place with a garden. He drew me a little map on the back of an envelope and I got in my car. It wasn't that hard to find my way there after that.

It wasn't what I had expected, to be honest. It was simple; a small little place, nice enough, and there was what you might call a garden. There was a little fence out front, separating the yard from the road. The yard itself was overgrown with plants and flowers in whites and yellows and blues. A narrow slate path ran from the gate of the fence to the front door, weaving between bushes and grassy patches. It was a cute little spot despite being less than perfectly cared for. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by that though. I couldn’t quite imagine any gardening going on here.

I parked my car across the street and took my time crossing. The house looked quiet, and I wondered what I would do if he wasn't home. Wait, probably. The front door was locked. I knocked on it for a minute, then leaned on the bell by the door for a few moments. Nothing. I knocked again. So he wasn't home. Okay. I turned my back against the door and sat down on the stoop. My knees complained a little, but they were alright once I was down.

Twenty minutes later it started to rain. I considered going back to sit in my car, but it was too late to stay dry. I stayed on the stoop; this way I would look as pathetic as I felt and I wouldn't be tempted to give up and drive back to L.A. I put my chin in my hands and waited.

About twenty minutes after that, a man came walking up along the road carrying an umbrella in one hand and a little package in the other. The umbrella was one of those big black things with a hooked handle, and it was tilted in such a way that it covered his eyes. I couldn't see his face at all, only the slope of his shoulders and the casual saunter of his stride. He was wearing a blue silk shirt with the sleeves cuffed over his wrists, with no jacket or tie, and there was dirt on the knees of his cream trousers. The man came to the fence and pushed through the gate, fumbling to tuck the package under an arm so he could dig in his pocket for keys. As he was walking up the path he tilted the umbrella back enough to look at the door. Finally, I saw his face.

Upon seeing me, he stopped dead in his tracks. I did too, even though I was sitting still already. My chest clenched up beneath my shirt. We looked at each other and froze. My mouth fell open slightly. The package fell out from under his arm and hit the wet ground at my feet. If I had thought this was a bad idea before, I was sure of it now.

He looked almost like he had when I had known him, but older. His hair was white again-- or it struck me that way at first. I blinked and realized that it was more artful than that. There was white at his temples in that way women love, and a few dignified streaks through the rest, but the general shade was a sort of gray that would look natural if you didn't look too closely. His skin was lighter too-- tan still, but not as dark as it had been when he came to see me all those years ago. Coupled with the good dye job he looked like any other wealthy, retired gringo living out his days in Mexico. His nose was still flattened and he had the scars all over his face, but when I looked at him I saw a man I knew. He was wearing sunglasses with green lenses, spotted ever so slightly with water drops.

He just stared at me with wide eyes and a clenched jaw. It wasn't as though I had expected him to drop everything and run to me with open arms, but I had expected slightly more of a reaction. His expression told me nothing; it was frozen, like he thought he was seeing a ghost. I knew how he felt.

"Hi, Terry," I said, breathless, then caught myself; "Señor Maioranos." I scooped his package off the ground before it could get too damp, heaved myself to my feet and touched my forehead in a faux salute. A pretty slick move, all in all. I handed over the little box, which was wrapped in brown paper, and he took it with fingers that were trembling ever so slightly.

"Not these days," Terry said tensely. He was cagey now, the open surprise gone from his face. "I gave up trying to pass for Mexican. It doesn't work down here."

"So who are you, then? These days."

"Paul Marston, again," he said, averting his eyes. "No one's ever looking for him."

So he was back to where he started, or close enough. Nearly as close to an original name as he had, as far as I knew or could figure. One step removed, perhaps. His history was as unclear to me as it ever had been. I looked at him and tried to see a Paul. Even with his altered face, he would always be Terry Lennox to me-- His eyes were the same. I looked at him and could still see the white haired young man I had pulled off the asphalt at The Dancers all that time ago.

"Well," I said slowly, "turns out I'm looking for him."

A crooked smile escaped out of his face. He'd told me long ago that the plastic job had fixed the nerves in his cheek, so he wasn't quite so frozen. He could smile with his whole face now, but didn't. Habit, I guessed. I was glad for it; it made him more familiar to me. I smiled too.

Slowly, he came over to me, tucking the little package he was holding back under his arm. He put a few fingertips on my bicep, as if to test if I was real. "You look good," I said. He did. He looked healthy and vibrant, and up close I could see little crow’s feet wrinkles nestled into the tan around his eyes. He looked dignified, handsome; he was aging well.

"You look old," he said. I shrugged. I felt old and I was old. Standing this close, his umbrella covered me. Rain water dripped from my hair down over my cheeks. His hand came up to brush my jaw, his thumb settling on my cheekbone. I blinked water out of my eyes. He traced the outline of my blackened eye. "What happened to you?"

"Bad case." His expression softened and he gave my bruise a little push. It hurt, but not much. I cringed.

He said, "Come on inside, you drowned rat.”

He unlocked the front door and led me in. Behind the door was a narrow hallway, gloomy in the diffused light of the rainy day. He dropped his umbrella by the door and led me down the hallway. It gave way to what would be a sunny kitchen on a different day, with pale yellow floor tiles and big windows behind the sink and along the perpendicular wall. There was a little table against that wall, under the windows, and he gestured for me to sit. I took off my wet jacket and hung it over the back of a chair, then sat down.

"This is a nice place," I said, making appalling small talk. He shrugged, taking off his sunglasses and dropping the package on the table. It was a little thing, slightly damp from the rain and about the size of a large paperback. I half wondered what was in it; stationary, maybe. I looked up and for the first time I got a clear view of his gray-blue eyes. "Is it just you here?"

"What are you doing here, Marlowe?"

I had been asking myself that since I left the house on Yucca Avenue.

"I don't know," I said truthfully. "I wanted to see you."

He leaned against the counter with a casual pop of his hip. After all this time and all those letters I had assumed he would be pleased to see me. Instead he just seemed tense and suspicious, despite his casual posturing. "Why?"

"I was tired of being knocked around. You never knocked me around."

"Not personally. I treated you pretty badly though."

"Sure," I conceded. It was true enough that thanks to him I had been knocked around plenty. But that had been a long time ago.

"But?" I didn't really know what he was asking for, what he wanted me to say. I floundered. He continued; "It's been eight years since I've heard from you, Marlowe. Eight years without a word. And now you show up on my doorstep. Are you investigating something? I'm too old for games. So are you."

"You're right. But I'm not on a case. I'm just here to see you." He lifted an eyebrow at me expectantly. I laughed; "You've gotten tougher."

He didn't smile or laugh or move, but a little twinkle lit up in his eyes. He looked so good like that-- leaning against the counter with his long legs stretched out and his arms crossed over his thin, fit chest.

"I drink less these days," he said as if that were an explanation.

"That's good."

He sat down across from me, put his hands on the table and looked at his knuckles.

"Listen, Philip," he made an aborted movement as if he was going to reach across and touch my hand. Instead he folded his hands in his lap under the table. I looked at him and saw a man who was lean and elegant and comfortably starting his middle age in Mexico. He had to be forty by now. "I need to know what you're about. I've got a life here now." All I had done was disrupted him and brought his unpleasant past to his doorstep. What an idiot I’d been.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'll leave, I'll quit bothering you." I stood up to go but Terry leapt half to his feet over the table and caught me by the wrist.

"I didn't say I wanted you to leave." I didn't say anything and he didn't let go of my wrist. "You look tired, Marlowe." His grip tightened just a little. "Maybe you're lonely up in Los Angeles. Maybe you miss having someone around."

I looked down at the tiled floor.

"Maybe every time someone mentions Mexico, you think of me," he said slowly. "Maybe every time you meet a drunk, you think of me. Maybe... you're tired of just thinking of me. Maybe you’ve missed me."

"Maybe."

"You always were bad at expressing how you felt," he said, and let go of my wrist. He went over to the stove and put on a kettle to boil. He pulled out a Chemex and set up the filter and grounds. All this he did without looking at me or saying another word. I wondered if he thought I would try to leave again, and that he would let me go if I did. Once the water had boiled and he had poured it over the grounds to start it brewing, he turned back to me.

"You have a hotel in town?"

We were suddenly having an entirely different conversation. I shook my head; "I came right here."

"You can stay here, if you want," he said, looking away from me again. "I have a spare room."

"Thanks."

The rain splattered against the windows and we sat across from each other, drinking our coffee. It was pretty good and I told him so.

"When do you think you'll head back?" He asked quietly while stirring sugar into his second cup of coffee.

"I don't know," I said.

We spent the rest of the evening like that, sitting in the kitchen and making awkward, meaningless small talk. He cooked a little dinner around eight, and then made more coffee. He showed me the rest of his little house. The small living room at the front of the house had a sofa, a coffee table, two chairs, and a wall bookcase that was more than full. Books were stacked along the footboards and I was surprised to see he had a couple of Roger Wade’s novels on the shelves. Terry didn't give me time to look too closely at those before leading me away. There were two bedrooms-- one perfectly put together and one a bit more lived in-- two bathrooms, a linen closet in the hall, and that was basically it.

"Not much," I said when we found ourselves back in the kitchen. "I thought you had all that money."

"I do," he said, "but that doesn't mean I have to use it. Besides,” he added hurriedly, looking around at his cozy little house. “I like this place. It's quiet."

"Reminds me of an old apartment I used to have."

"In what way?"

"It's small."

He cracked a little smile. His scars shifted in sharp relief to his tanned skin.

"How old were you when you went to war?" I said it without thinking. He looked at me with a startled expression. I had never asked about his time in the war before. I had never asked him about anything.

"Twenty-five. I volunteered."

I nodded. I had never been conscripted to go abroad-- too old, too lucky, too ambivalent to volunteer. I was thirty-five in 1942. Still draftable. It just didn't happen for me. "That was brave."

"It was stupid," he said. One hand came up to his face and idly, as if he didn't notice he was doing it, ran his fingers over his scars.

"Do you regret it?"

He shrugged and looked at me with those eyes of his.

We sat back at the kitchen table and had another round of coffee.

"Ever get married, Marlowe?" he asked quietly when we had finished the pot. It was a fair enough question.

"Once," I said, feeling an ugly smile form on my mouth. "After I knew you." Married. Sure. But not happily. And for under six months, too. And why to Linda, Terry's dead wife's sister? I'm sure I could produce an excuse for that better than the truth. She was a remnant of my time with him, and she had wanted me, and I had thought I loved her, and maybe that had been enough at the start. It wasn't enough to keep going on though. I didn't say Linda's name. It didn't seem worth saying. I didn't think he'd like me if I said it, as if the moment I said who I had married I would destroy the good will we'd created over the course of the evening.

"And?"

"Divorced." I waggled my left hand, showing off the empty ring finger.

He smiled then, a strangely pleased leer, and changed the subject.

Around midnight, Terry announced that he was going to bed. He pushed up from the table, gave me a strange, long look, and then without saying anything else he walked off towards his bedroom.

I stayed in the kitchen, sitting alone with my coffee and a cigarette. The rain had stopped a few hours back, leaving the air damp and hot. I sat there for almost an hour. Then I stood up, rinsed out my coffee cup, turned out the light, and walked to Terry's bedroom. It was just off the main hallway and the door was slightly ajar, as if he had left it as an invitation. Maybe he had.

Terry was lying on the bed on his side wearing just his undershirt and shorts. His body was lean and thin and tan against the white sheets. His eyes were open but he didn't turn to look at me as I came in.

I sat on the edge of the bed and put my fingers through his silky almost-white hair. He didn't move more than to blink slowly. I tucked my hand under his cheek and lifted, turning his face and forcing his body to shift as he turned. Sprawled now, twisted half onto his back, he looked up at me with sleepy eyes, like he was on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness. He blinked at me again. I ran my hands over his features, over the surgery and shrapnel scars. He let me. I put my hand on his throat and he let me do that too. I put my thumb under his chin and pushed up, forcing his mouth closed and his jaw upwards. He looked at me steadily and blinked again and moistened his lips. I could hurt him like this, easily. Squeeze or press or twist just the right way, and it would be easy to hurt him. I squeezed just a little. He gasped ever so lightly, a quick inhalation of breath, while looking me straight in the eye. I loosened my hand and moved my thumb.

"I missed you too, Marlowe," he said so quietly the wind could have drowned him out.

I put my hands back in his hair, pulled his head back so his mouth fell open, and leaned down to kiss him.

Because that was what I wanted, wasn't it? That was the whole reason I had come down to see him in Mexico at all. I had missed him, and the care I felt for him had never dissipated over the years. I had spent the past eight years missing him, wanting him, dreaming of him. Even when I was married to Linda, even when she and I would lie in bed together, it was Terry I thought about.

I wasn't angry with him anymore, or even disappointed. I didn't care. I wanted him and I had missed him. And I cared for him.

So I kissed him.

His body tensed up and he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed, not hard, but hard enough to separate us.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a hushed, heavy whisper. My face felt hot and I turned away from him. How stupid I was. Stupid and crazy and wretched.

"I don't know," I said, feeling myself spiraling sharply downward into a black pit of shame. I hadn't felt this awful in years. "I don't know, I--" I stuttered and fumbled my way through an apology. “I’m sorry.”

Terry propped himself up on his elbows; I could see him looking at me intently. His eyes were wide and his mouth was half-open. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor.

"No-o," he said quietly. I barely heard him. "No, Phil, that's not..." He touched me lightly on the arm, and then his hand settled onto my shoulder. "It's just... I told you before, I need to know what you're about."

"What?" He pulled me towards him and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of my mouth.

"So it's not that," he said. Even in the dim light, I could see his cheeks were slightly pink. "But I couldn't stand to be led on. My heart couldn’t handle it." He said it quickly and then looked away. I watched his jaw tighten. "That's all.” He was quiet, but firm. "I won’t be toyed with. I need to know what you're here for.”

I twisted on the edge of the bed and put my hands on either side of his hips. I crowded in close to him, close enough that he bent back away from me, and kissed him hard on the mouth. "This," I said, kissing him again. Any doubts I might have had had disappeared, and I was sure. He slumped down off his elbows and against the pillows again, and I followed him down. "I'm here for this. For you. That’s all." He mumbled something against my mouth that I couldn't understand. Terry put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me close to him, and opened up to me. He moved his hands and grabbed my hips and pulled me onto the bed over him.

"You're soft," he said, squeezing my hipbones. He was right-- I was a lot softer around the middle than I had been eight years ago. Softer but not heavier, necessarily. I was just old now. I'll be one of those old men who get thinner and thinner until they're just bones and skin. Terry would be the same, but he was ten years behind me. Still, he kissed me soft and sweet and quiet; not a young man’s kiss.

"I've always been sentimental," I said, as if that was a response. He let out a weak little laugh. I kissed him on the mouth again. Any desire I had had to be rough with him, to hurt him-- all that was gone.

"I thought I'd never see you again," he said when I left his mouth alone for a moment to kiss the scars on his jaw.

"Uh-huh."

His fingers blindly fumbled at my belt. He panted: "I figured you hated me."

"I did," I said. His fingers abandoned my belt, slid up my stomach, and started working at my tie. He slipped it loose and pulled it over my head. He dropped his hands down onto the pillow beside his head.

"And now?"

I smiled and kissed him again. "Not so much, now."

"Glad to hear it," he said with a crooked little smirk. He left my tie on the pillow and his hands went back to work at my belt. This time he got it unhooked almost immediately. "Get your shoes off my bed," he said with a growl, and I laughingly kicked them off my feet. "Thank you." He undid the fastenings of my trousers and slipped a hand in against my groin.

I shuddered and my back arched away from his touch. "Oh," I said, with just a touch of shivering embarrassment. Terry looked up at me through his eyelashes.

"Sorry," he said with a coy twitch of his lips and pulled his hand away, slipping it up under my shirt instead. His hands were cool and I shivered a little more.

"You know what you're doing," I said. Suddenly his hands were gone, and something in his face closed up.

Terry pushed my shoulders and leveraged his hips and next thing I knew I was on my back on the bed and Terry was above me.

"Are you staying?" He said. I just looked at him. "Are you going to stay here with me?"

"Is that what you want?"

He shrugged. "So we can become a couple of old queers together in Mexico?" He continued with a sort of mean laugh, nearly sneering. "You wouldn't even have to work. You could be a kept man." I frowned; he was holding me down by the shoulders. "Or not. I suppose there must be a market down here for private dicks." His mouth twisted a little into something nasty that wasn’t quite a smile. He ground his hips against mine. I tensed up and he laughed a little more. I didn't particularly like it. I wriggled under his hands, starting to feel uncomfortable. "I don't know. That sounds alright to me. That sounds quite alright to me."

With another strange, tight laugh Terry let me go and flopped down onto the bed beside me. He put his head on my shoulder and closed his eyes. The mood had shifted abruptly and I didn’t know what I had done. All his energy had left him.

"I don't care what you do, Marlowe," he said slowly. "Stay if you like, or go back to Los Angeles." I looked at his eyebrows, sandy brown under the gray and white. His natural, original hair color, perhaps. I would probably never know.

"You don't care?" He gave a weak little laugh. I was pushing him, I knew, to make the decision for me.

"Of course I'd prefer you stay, Philip, but I won't be surprised when you don't."

"You don't think I'll stay?"

"Do you think we could be happy together? In the long term? I think we might, but you're not the sort to even try it."

I was about to protest, but then stopped myself. He was probably right. He continued, speaking drowsily from out of my line of sight.

"You don't believe in happiness for yourself, as far as I can tell. You invite misery. You're a glutton for punishment." He sat up, supporting himself on one elbow, his head propped up by a hand. I looked at him. He put a finger on my bruised cheekbone. "This too."

For a moment he just looked at me sadly. "When you sent me away, all those years ago, it was the same thing. You have your honor and it leaves you with nothing for yourself. You're sad, Phil," he said quietly. "But there's no reason for that."

I weaseled an arm around his shoulders. I didn't want to think about this right now. I didn't want to make a decision. Staying with Terry would mean giving up everything I had in L.A., and while everything I had wasn't much, it was my life. My entire adulthood had been spent building up that life-- my career, my tiny office, my few clients, the house on Yucca Avenue. It felt like a lot to give up just to give it a shot with Terry. And in Mexico of all places. But that was the choice-- Terry and Mexico, or whatever I had in Los Angeles-- because I couldn't have both. Terry couldn't come back to the States without risking his neck and I wouldn't ask him to. He was supposed to be dead after all, and any recognition would be bad news. If one of us was going to give up an established life, it had to be me. Terry had done enough of that in his time.

"So? We have something here," he said softly against my shoulder. "Don't you think so?"

"Do we? I think that might have been two other fellows, a long time ago."

He cracked a rueful smirk, no doubt remembering our last conversation all those years ago, like I was. I wondered if he too went over that conversation in his head, replaying it again and again over the past eight years, trying to figure out how it could have gone differently.

"Either way I would have to go back north. To close up the office and pack up the house and--"

"You can do all that by phone."

"My chess set," I fumbled, wavering, "my files, my clothes..."

"I'll buy you new clothes."

I pulled a face. Thinking about it, I had a few friends I could call who could pack up my meager belongings and have them shipped down here. I had people in my life I could trust enough to do that. But I'd rather do it myself, if I was going to do it.

"I'd have to go back, even if just for a week." I was getting defensive. "Just to wrap things up."

He turned his face away from me. He wasn't going to fight with me about it. I understood his reticence. He was afraid that if I went back to L.A., I would sit down at my desk and fall back into habit, and it would be another eight years before I found my way back to him again, if I ever did. He was right to worry. I had gotten myself down here on a whim, doubting myself the whole time. If I ever got back to the familiar reality of Los Angeles, I was likely to talk myself out of abandoning everything I had there and running south to shack up with a man living under a false identity. Even now I could hardly believe I was considering it. It sounded ridiculous and it sounded completely unlike me.

I suddenly knew that he was right, completely right. If I went back to Los Angeles, even for a day, I wouldn't come back. I would live and die in that small office, hunting down missing boyfriends and lost pearls, unless somebody shot me first. That would be my whole life... and I would miss Terry every day of it.

He gave a heavy, miserable, resigned sigh and sat up in the bed. He put his arms around his knees and dropped his forehead onto his arms. Thoughtlessly almost, one hand slipped under the short sleeve of his undershirt to scratch at his shoulder. God, but he was covered in scars. I hadn’t seen all of them before, but now, even in the dim light, they stood out sharply on his arm, shoulder, throat, and face. He'd been hurt, and hurt badly, and that was before the Nazi doctors had gotten to him.

I suddenly felt sick with guilt and far too sober. I wanted a cigarette and a few stiff drinks, and more than that I wanted to taste all of Terry's scars.

I sat up then and put my hands in his white-gray hair. He didn't move until I moved him, lifting his head and turning him to face me. I pressed our foreheads together and looked him in the eyes, just in the eyes, and tried to see the man I had cared for-- had loved, honestly, genuinely, in my own repressed, miserable way-- all those years ago. Maybe Terry was the only person I’d ever really loved. Who knows?

His eyes were the same. Sadder, but the same.

"I'll stay," I said. He shivered. "I'll stay here with you."

"No you won't."

"I will." I tilted forward to press my mouth against his. I had to convince myself as much as convince him.

"No," he said. It sounded like he was going to say more, but he didn't. I kept kissing him, tasting the bow of his lips and the corners of his mouth. He remained tense against me, his body folded up, even as I kissed at his scars and behind his ears and down his neck. I mouthed at his collar bones and kissed the underside of his chin.

I said his name a few times against his jaw. I felt his shoulders loosen and his arms came away from his knees.

"I don't believe you, Philip," he said, even as he tilted his head back so I could have better access to his throat. "I know you won't stay."

"I will," I said, and slipped my hands under his shirt. His belly was soft and warm and I pinched at his hips.

"No, you won't." He said it one more time before I got back to his mouth and stopped his talking. I paused only to peel off his shirt and push him back onto the pillows. He pulled at my collar and kissed me in a confident way. It was a way I had never been kissed before. It was a kiss from a man, and a man who knew how to kiss well. It was the kiss of a man thirsty for me, and trying to drink as much as he could before I was gone.

A weak, desperate sound came out of my throat. Terry fumbled with my shirt buttons until he could push it half off my shoulders; I wriggled out of the sleeves and tossed it off into the darkness.

From there it was no time at all before he had me down to my boxers and we were pressed together knee to chest. The frantic energy of getting undressed bled away and we settled into a lazy sort of rhythm. Terry rolled his hips against me and we kissed slow and long and tired. I wrapped my arms around him and kept my hands in his hair; that way I could only see his familiar eyes. My fingers felt his scars. They traipsed over his entire right side, from the ribs up.

His breathing got shallow and fast when I touched his scars; he shivered and his back arched.

"I'm staying," I said softly against his shoulder. "I'm staying, I promise." His fingers dug hard into my biceps.

"Sure, Marlowe," he said weakly. "Sure."

 

 

When I woke up, Terry was already awake. I pried my eyes open, feeling groggy and stiff, and he was lying next to me on his side, looking at me softly. The sun was bright and hazy coming in through the windows, and I understood why Terry had bought this house.

"Hey," I said. I stretched my back a little.

"I half thought you'd be gone when I woke up," he said dreamily. He wasn't much more awake than I was. "That it had all been some kind of sad dream."

I didn't say anything.

"Or that you would have changed your mind during the night and snuck out. I'm not a heavy sleeper, but you can be damned sneaky when you want to be."

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?"

A lazy smile slid across Terry's features. "So you are. Breakfast?"

We meandered out of bed and towards the kitchen. I pulled on my shirt and Terry pulled out a set of thin cotton pajamas in blue and yellow. He pulled on the pants and put his arms through the shirt but didn't button it. As Terry was scrambling eggs for us, he turned over his shoulder and asked, casual as could be, "When are you planning on heading out?"

I looked at him, standing in the sun by the windows, putzing over the stove and idly rubbing at his stomach, just above the waist band of his pajamas. His chest was thin and scarred and he was almost glowing in the light. His hair was mussed and standing up in a natural loose pompadour.

"I'm not going anywhere, Terry." He shook his head and went back to cooking. “You’re stuck with me now.”

He laughed.

"These are your pajamas," he told me later, as we lingered over our toast.

"What?"

"You gave me these when you drove me to Tijuana, remember? You packed me a suitcase of soaps and pajamas and a bottle of whiskey."

I laughed and reached across the table to touch the cotton over his shoulder. It was thin and soft and well-worn.

"I had forgotten about those. I can't believe you kept them."

He shrugged as if it meant nothing.

Breakfast was easy and Terry didn't mention my leaving again. I figured that was the last of it.

We sat around into the afternoon. He left me to clean up and when he came back he was showered, shaved, and dressed. Where yesterday he had been the epitome of casual, today he looked like every penny I knew he was worth. He was spruced up in grey trousers and a blue-green jacket that was nearly aquamarine. His shirt was a light checked blue and his tie a delicate, complimentary pink. His green sunglasses were tucked into one pocket along with a white pocket square, peeking up like a cuff. His hair was combed perfectly into three ledges over his forehead.

My breath caught in my throat. He smiled. I had spent the past hour rifling through his book collection; he had spent it becoming the handsomest man I'd ever seen.

"Get dressed, Marlowe," he said with a little European drawl. "I'm taking you out to lunch."

I showered and put on my rumpled suit from the day before. Next to Terry I looked very shabby indeed. He touched my sleeve as we walked out the door.

"You look so dour."

"Do I?”

"We'll walk into town, I think," he said, taking my arm in his. "Fine by you?"

I nodded and we strolled off. We walked with our elbows linked nearly all the way into town. It was all downhill, and not terribly difficult. The scenery was pleasant enough.

There was a little cafe on a corner in town which Terry led us to; he bantered easily with the waiter in Spanish. I couldn't quite follow it; I speak enough Spanish for LA, but not well enough-- or fast enough-- for Mexico. We sat at a little table outside and the waiter-- a lanky, light footed lad-- brought us a couple of Mexican beers. 

"This is nice," I said, looking out across the sidewalk. 

"Well," he said with a playfully wistful sort of sigh, looking over his menu at me. "It's not like it's all fun and games down here, you know." I raised an eyebrow. "It's like anywhere else, I suppose. People go to work. There's violence." He laughed as if those two things were comparable in lightness. I decided to ignore the latter part of that. 

"Do you work?" I’d never seen proof that Terry had worked a day in his life.

"Surprised though you may be to hear it, yes. As a translator," he said as if it were the most boring thing in the world. "Mostly letters and books. I speak three languages and they've come in handy." 

"Do you?"

He sat up slightly straighter. "English, Spanish, and French," he said. Then he added quietly, in a way surely meant to be dismissive, "And a bit of German."

"I didn't know that."

"I'm very continental," he said wryly and looked back to his menu. "The fun and games can continue for a while at least. It's all very casual work for me, so my schedule can be as open as I please."

"Me too," I said. "If I start working down here."

"You'll have to learn the language a bit better, chum," Terry laughed and put his menu down. "It'll be hard to interrogate suspects if you're struggling to communicate." The waiter sauntered up and looked expectantly at us. Terry looked to me. "Know what you want?"

I shook my head and shrugged.

"I need to learn the language better. You order for me."

He smiled. "Sure."

He did and the waiter nodded without taking any notes, and sauntered off again. No one is in a rush in Mexico. We talked shop while we waited-- Terry thought I could run an investigations business out of the house, meeting clients in the living room, "Like Sherlock Holmes," he said. "And I, your faithful Watson." 

"I'm not sure Holmes and Watson were precisely shacked up together."

Terry laughed. "Read again, my friend."

"Doesn't Watson get married at some point?" 

Terry gave me a pointed look and then shrugged casually as if to say, _Well, we all make mistakes sometimes._

I said I'd probably look for an office. 

"Or maybe I'll just retire all together. Not work at all." I'd been thinking about it since I left LA. I was getting old and tired, and the business had worn me down.

"That's the spirit." Terry sipped his beer. "Though once people hear you're a detective, they'll come to you even if you don't want them to."

"Do you think so?"

He nodded. "When people need help they'll seek it out wherever they can."

Terry leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. One of his long feet brushed against my shin. He pulled his green-lensed sunglasses out of a pocket and fumbled with them without putting them on.

"I didn't know who I was, really, for a long time." He said it abruptly, running his fingers thoughtlessly along the edge of the table. "After the war. And before. I was hollow. I wasn't sure about myself, about anything."

I thought about our last conversation in my office, how he had said something similar to me then. That he didn't know, that he hadn't been sure, how he had been empty inside. I hadn't thought much of his words then, and I wondered where they were going now. Then, as now, I would have felt more comfortable if he'd put his sunglasses on.

"But-- But with you I knew a little better." He looked away from me, squinting out across the street like there was something to see out there. "I didn't know a lot of things, but for those few months I was..." He wavered, looking for the right word. "It was like my personality had been in flux, but I was almost grounded with you." He flushed. "If only everything hadn't fallen apart."

"You mean if only Sylvia wasn't murdered and you hadn't fled the country."

"Don't be nasty," he said. "If only I hadn't talked too much about myself, wasn't that it?" He gave a rueful smile and I watched him choose to change tactics. "I mean that you were good for me, Marlowe, while it lasted. I know this is… a somewhat awkward conversation, but I want you to know. These past eight years, I've been alone and thinking about you, and about myself, and about how I was with you... And I've figured a lot out about myself."

"Okay." I waited.

"They didn't want me to see you at all, Randy and Mendy, but I knew I had to. I had to see you and to let you know..."

"That you were alive?"

"Yes."

"At the time, I liked you better dead." His face fell and he almost put on his sunglasses with a tremble of his fingers.

"And now?"

"I'm here, aren't I? With you?" I forced a smile and he did too. If he hadn't come to me I would have hunted him down eventually. By the end of all that mess I was pretty well convinced that the suicide had been a fake. I would have needed to be sure.

"I'm sorry about all the pain I caused you, Phil. Really, I am." He looked down at the table and dragged a finger through the condensation around his beer bottle. "I just can't believe you're here, that’s all. It seems unreal."

I didn't know what to say, so I took a sip of my beer instead. I crossed my legs under the table and kicked him lightly in the leg. His mouth twisted into a little smile. I smiled too.

“To me too.”

I looked at him across the table, with his elbows on the table and his hands folded under his chin. He was so damned elegant. It was jarring to look at him like this, half the man I had known and considered my friend, half the stranger who had come into my office six months after my friend had died. His white hair contrasted with his flattened nose, his blue-gray eyes contrasted with his too scarred face. It was like looking at two men overlaid on top of each other and it was disorienting. He looked out across the street, squinting a little in the sunlight. I took a good look at his profile.

"Do you think you could get your nose back?"

One of his hands fluttered up to his face. "This old thing?" He laughed. "Does it bother you that it's not how it was when we met?"

"A bit," I admitted.

"Well, Marlowe, I'm afraid I've gotten used to this one. Sorry, chum." He dropped his hand to the table and smiled at me. That was the same at least. His crooked little half smiles. "Besides," he added. "It could never be exactly as it was." I looked hard at his face. It wasn't so distracting, really. I could get used to it. He had. "And after surgery I’d be swollen and bruised for weeks. I'd hate for you to see me like that."

"Why?"

He waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. "Oh," he said, glancing at me. His eyes glittered. "Vanity."

Our lunch came and Terry instructed me in the all the proper ways to eat it. We took our time and had a long and leisurely meal. The food was good, the beer was cold, and the conversation was easy. Terry left his sunglasses on the table.

On the walk back to Terry's house we stopped into a liquor store to pick up some gin.

"I don't really keep it in the house," Terry said as we considered the bottles. "But I still like drinking it, of course. There's a decent bar down near the water. I'll take you sometime, before you go, if you'd like."

"Sure," I said, ignoring the implication that I would be leaving. We picked up some Rose's lime juice too.

"I have a lime tree in the back yard, actually," he idly informed me as we stood at the counter. He paid in a few crisp pesos. I would need to get my cash changed over. In the meantime, I stood with my hands in my pockets. Terry fingered the pale green bottle of lime juice. "It's not as good though."

We sauntered back towards his house, our elbows brushing through our sleeves. I held the bottles, wrapped in their brown bags, in one arm. The rain from yesterday had gone like it had never happened, and the day was hot and bright. Terry wore his sunglasses. I stopped at my car on the way into the house and dug my old horn-rims out of the glove box. I'd had them for fifteen years and when I put them on Terry laughed.

"Those are lovely," he said, turning towards the house.

I grabbed my weekend bag and the box of letters off the front seat and followed him inside.

I found him in the kitchen, putting together a tray of glasses and ice.

"I thought we could drink out back. It's nice in the evenings." I nodded. He spotted the box under my arm. "What's that?"

"All your letters."

"No," he said with a laugh. "No, you didn't keep them all?"

"I did." I looked at him over the top of my sunglasses. The sun shone bright through the kitchen window. "Every last one."

We went out back and sat on the little porch. It was more of a stoop than anything, a couple of steps that led down onto the grass, and we sat on the stairs. I put the box of letters on the ground between us. We mixed up some gimlets and drank them, looking out over the wild grasses and flowers of Terry's yard. Eventually Terry slid off the lid of the box and started to thumb through the letters. He placed them in little fans around us and occasionally read bits to himself.

"Oh no," he said. "I'm not entirely proud of these."

"At worst they're dull," I said. "At best they're actually very nice."

"At worst they're pathetic," he groaned, sipping at his fourth gimlet. "At best they're pathetic too. Utterly pathetic."

"Well, a little," I said as I splashed lime juice into my gin-- our mixing had become considerably sloppier after the second drink or so.

" _'We were friends once, weren't we? I know I've disappointed you, but doesn't that count for anything?'_ " He read it aloud with a sneering twist to his lip. "How repulsive."

"You're too hard on yourself."

"You wouldn't have said that eight years ago."

He was right, so I didn't say anything. I just sipped at my drink and shrugged.

"I can't believe you kept these."

"Well, I didn't read them until a few days ago, so don't give me too much credit."

Terry heaved himself up off the porch and wandered out onto the yard. He had toed his shoes off an hour ago and now walked barefoot through the grass. The sun was setting and it glinted off his hair and the glass in his hand. I started to put the letters back into their box. Suddenly he turned back and looked at me. "Shouldn't you be packing up to leave soon?"

I shook my head and reached out my hand for him. He slowly came back over to me and took it. Leaning over, he put his glass on the porch next to me and kissed me very gently, just on my cheek. Smiling, Terry tried to pull me to my feet, but lost his balance doing it and we both ended up tumbling down onto the grass. I hit the ground hard, groaned miserably, and rolled onto my back.

"I'm too old for this sort of thing, Terry. My knees can't handle it." He laughed at me.

"Oh, your knees?" He tossed his head back. In the dim light floating out from the house, his hair was white as bone and so were his teeth when he smiled. I was a little dizzy from all the gin, but the grass was cool against my head and the night was warm, and next to me, Terry was laughing.

"My old joints," I started to say, but was interrupted by Terry swarming into my field of vision and kissing me.

We stayed that way for a while, languidly rolling together on the grass. He smiled against my mouth and clutched at the shoulders of my jacket.

"Phil," he mumbled. I tasted my own name along with the gin on his tongue. "Philip... Let's go inside, shall we?"

I nodded. He helped me to my feet and I struggled up; my knees complained the whole time. Terry didn't tease me at all, just kept his hands on mine and smiled softly at me.

We stumbled into the house, kissing our way across the porch and along the hallway. I bumped into the walls more than once, and Terry knocked his head as we fell through the door into the bedroom. And we, as they say, fell into bed.

"What will the neighbors think?" I panted against his neck a little while later. I was sweating and Terry's fingers slipped off my shoulder. He mewled high in the back of his throat. "Me living here with you?" I pulled his hips a little closer to mine. He all but squeaked.

"They won't care," he said in a breathless whisper. "They aren't that close and they won't care." His fingers found traction at the base of my neck. "And I don't care what they think." He gave me a determined look and twisted his body in a way that weakened my knees. "Do you?"

"No," I said, kissing him fiercely. "No, I don't."

Once I would have cared. Once I would have cared a lot. Once I had cared enough to turn my back on Terry and let him walk out of my life. I had cared enough what people thought that I married Linda Loring, even though I knew it was doomed to failure from the start. I had enjoyed women, and maybe I had even loved some of them, but none like I had loved Terry Lennox, with his white hair and lean hips and strange pride.

Instead of thinking too much about it, I just kissed him again.

 

 

In the morning, I left Terry sleeping and slipped out to the living room to use his phone.

I called up to L.A. and made some arrangements to have my office closed up. There was nothing there that I really wanted, so I asked that the files be destroyed and the rest of it be sold. As for the house, I called the woman it belonged to in Idaho and told her I was moving out, but I would send her my last rent check in a few days. I told her too that when she got back, a few of my things would still be in the house and that she could do whatever she pleased with them. A few suits and a chess set and a coffee maker. The remnants of my L.A. life. She wished me well and said not to worry. I gave her the number at Terry's house just in case.

"Where is that?" She asked. "Where are you moving to?"

"Mexico."

"Oh," she said. "What takes you there?"

"Love," I said, glancing towards the door. Terry had appeared in the doorframe, still in his pajamas. I spotted him and he lifted his chin at me. "Or something like it." 

"How wonderful, Mr. Marlowe," she said with obvious delight in her voice. "I hope you'll be very happy." 

"Me too. Thanks." 

He leaned jauntily against the wall while I finished up the call and the moment I hung up he came over to the sofa and crouched in front of me.

"I couldn't do that," I said with a gesture and what I hoped was a wry smirk. He put his hands on my knees for balance. "My poor old joints couldn't handle it."

He laughed at me. “Are you always going to use your joints as an excuse?”

"I'm getting old, Terry," I said. "Aren't I too old for you? Shouldn't you find some pretty young thing to spend your days with?"

He shrugged. "I've been down here eight years and haven't found a single pretty young thing I’d prefer over you."

He stood then, hands still on my knees, and kissed me on my forehead.

"Let's have some breakfast, Marlowe. Go buy you some new clothes."

I smiled. I hadn't smiled so much in ten years.

“Sure.” I took hold of his arms and pulled him down onto the couch. He tumbled into my lap and threw his head back. Boyish laughter fell from his crooked mouth. I looked at the crow’s feet around his eyes and I couldn’t help myself; I kissed the laughter right out of him. Breakfast waited an hour while we fumbled together on the couch, both of us laughing quietly against each other’s skin.

And just like that we settled into a quiet sort of retirement together. Warm. Domestic. Happy.

Suddenly life was easy. Things had always been easy with Terry, and our little life together came as easily as our afternoon drinks had come ten years ago. The things I had once objected to—his lack of morals, his lack of self, the way he had written himself off—had all bled away over time. He was sure now, clear about himself and solid. I had been thinking about him for years and now here he was, better than I remembered and always laughing. Now he smiled at me and I fell apart and got dopey.

There was an afternoon when we’d been living together for nearly three months, curled up together in his little Mexican bungalow. I’d settled in pretty well.

Terry sat across from me in the living room, half stretched across the sofa, sipping coffee casually as could be. I had a book of chess problems open in my lap, but I wasn't exactly reading it. More I was chewing on a pipe and staring out the window.

Interrupting the quiet of the afternoon, Terry asked, "Ever been to Argentina, Marlowe?" I barked out a laugh. As amused as I was that he more often than not still called me 'Marlowe', the idea that I had ever been to Argentina was the funnier bit.

"No," I said. I could feel my mouth twisting, a disbelieving sort of smile creeping across my face. He wasn't looking at me though; he was flipping through some papers on his knee, working on what he had earlier told me was a 'funny bit of translation', and balancing his coffee cup in his other hand.

"It's beautiful down there," he murmured. "Lots of ruins. We should go sometime. I think you’d appreciate the views."

"Terry," I said. He looked up at me. "Of course I've never been to Argentina. Until I was thirty, I'd never been out of the U.S. And then I only went to Mexico."

Terry stared at me like he could hardly believe it. I suppose, from his life experience, it was a little crazy that I'd never left the country. Terry had bounced around the world during the war and after, and had spent the past eight years in Central America with more money than he knew how to spend. Of course he had been to Argentina. Probably more than once.

"Never to Canada?" I shook my head. "We should visit there too. You can see where I was born." He spoke dryly then turned his attention back to his papers. I stayed watching him. A strand of hair fell over his forehead and he idly brushed it back into place.

"You know," I said, closing my book. "I'm realizing now just how little I actually know about you."

"What do you mean?" Looking straight at me, he gave a little smile and sipped his coffee. His scars shone.

"I've heard different versions of your life story, but never a complete tale from you. I can't be sure that I know a single true thing about you."

He almost looked offended, but the moment passed. His coffee cup clacked when he set it down on the table. With an almost prissy delicacy he carefully placed his papers next to the cup and adjusted them until they were precisely right.

"Do you want to?" He wasn't smiling any more. "Do you want to know every dirty detail of my life? I don't think you'd like it, really."

"I want to know about you." I'd thrown in my lot with him, and while I wasn't second-guessing my decision, I suddenly wanted to know at least something real about him. I wanted facts.

"You already know the important bits." He sat back in his seat. "I was born, I grew up, I went to war. Married someone I didn't love, got injured, was declared dead and got to be someone new. Then I made the same mistakes all over again. Drank a lot, met Sylvia, married Sylvia, divorced Sylvia, drank a lot more, etcetera, etcetera," he waved a hand. "And then I met you, and you know the rest."

"Do I?"

"Enough of it." He closed his eyes. "You know enough of everything." I knew he hated conversations like this-- they made him feel attacked and exhausted. He was tired of defending himself, and that was fair enough. He’d spent enough time defending himself to me. "And you know everything important that's true about me. You know who I am now. And you know that I love you." He cracked open one eye to watch my reaction.

I smiled. I couldn't help it. He gave a smirk and closed his eye again. He was right that I knew enough about him. I knew plenty. The past was in the past, especially for Terry. He’d never held his past as tightly as I had. I put my book down on the floor by my chair and left my pipe smoldering on a side table. Maybe he heard me coming, because by the time I was leaning over him on the couch he was smiling. "Say it again."

"Fine, Marlowe, if it amuses you." Keeping his eyes closed, his straightened his back a little and cleared his throat. Then, with a beautiful calm that I have never achieved, nor could ever hope to achieve in my entire life, Terry opened his eyes, looked at me, and said, "I love you."

I kissed him. "One more time."

"Philip Marlowe, I love you.” He indulged me and gave a laugh.

I kissed him again. "Now that," I said between kisses, "I think is true."

"It is. Don’t worry.”

I perused his face a bit more and he leaned back and let me. In this way, our lives wore on.

 

 

Life with Terry was like this: Finding white hairs in my comb. His caramel colored suits. Cooking while Terry smoked out back. Coming home in the afternoon to find him translating in the living room, surrounded by books and papers, or sprawled out asleep with a book across his chest and an arm over his eyes. Sundays where all we did was drink coffee and stay in. Terry trying to teach me proper Spanish and laughing at my pronunciations. Terry’s teeth, so white when he smiled. Terry brushing our pinkie fingers together when we walked. Terry getting jumpy when fireworks went off, then trying to shrug it off. Terry running his fingers along my eyebrows and collarbones. Terry shaving while I watched from the doorframe. Terry kissing sweat off my forehead. Terry and I sharing leisurely mornings and afternoons, quiet and happy.

And that was the heart of it, really. We were happy.

 

**Author's Note:**

> there was a time when this was a tidy little piece and then I got carried away, and now I'm just posting it to get it out of my life.


End file.
